Brad really couldn't get out of Jenny's place fast enough. He wasn't physically rushing, and there was nothing strained in his departure. He was simply hyper aware of her presence.

He was walking a fine line on this case already. If things got any more personal, he might have to request reassignment. It would not be the first time. In fact it was expected in cases where the parties involved had too great of a connection with an investigator. So far he was within the realm of ethically acceptable, but he did have to resist giving Jenny a hug and offering her consolation and . . . 'Fuck I've got to be careful." he muttered.

He arrived back at his home at 9:40 PM. He hit the can, grabbed a drink from the fridge and quickly scrolled through the news headlines first.

"Al Qaeda Prisoners Awoke 1 year Ahead of Schedule"

Prisoners on the space ship circling the solar system apparently awoke 50 weeks ago, or 1 year ahead of their anticipated potential landing date.

It is unknown why they awoke out of their hibernation early. Scientists are scrambling to figure out what could have caused this and how or if they might have survived in a space ship with minimal support for this extended period of time.

There was a hydroponics module on the space craft, an independent scientific test designed to grow manna, a type of glucose rich algae based material that some scientists believe was used by ancient Hebrews that wandered the desert with Moses after fleeing an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Horemheb, who had succeeded Pharaoh Tutankhamun. It is likely that the manna machine was stolen from the Egyptians of the time.

A manna machine discovered 900 feet below ground in Nova Scotia in 2030 was reverse engineered and sent on this space ship to test its capability to progressively generate more nutritional food stuffs over a 50 year period in the confines of space.

"The world is just too fucking weird sometimes." Rubenz said aloud. Then he toggled over to check his account balance.

Today's Earnings $53,254.43

Account Balance $53, 290.78

"Fuck Yeah!" Brad said aloud as he saw the bounce in his income.

It was probably from whatever viral video craze was taking place after his p3nis fuck up. Brad wasn't really embarrassed by much, especially when he might be able to retire early because of it. He did like being a detective and hoped that wouldn't get fucked up, at least not before he could help Jenny.

Jesus stole my Sk8board started playing on his cell phone.

"This is Detective Rubenz."

"Detective, I'm connecting you with Dr Razel Tulley at Walter Reed Medical Center Research and Development Unit." the automated voice said.

"Hello, this is Colonel Tulley, may I ask whom I'm speaking. Please also state your credentials and security key?" stated an extremely sultry voice with an even more authoritative tone.

“I need your assistance with some background information relating to a homicide investigation. A local distributor of prosthetic devices named Terrence McBoyd was murdered in his warehouse earlier this evening." Rubenz said.

"Terrence, Terry McBoyd was murdered?" Colonel Tulley stated.

"Yes Doctor, I mean Colonel, um how exactly do you prefer to be addressed?” Asked Rubenz.

"Colonel Tulley or Colonel will be fine Detective Rubenz."

"Certainly. Given your initial response, I take it you were aware of or possibly knew Terrence McBoyd? What if any type of relationship did you have with the deceased?"

"My company, Haifan Incorporated, works in a joint venture with the research department of Walter Reed Medical Center. Our joint venture licensed the rights to manufacture and distribute prosthetic devices worldwide. In essence Terry McBoyd managed the exclusive license."

"How exactly is your company partnered with Walter Reed in relation to this license?" Rubenz asked.

"I do want to cooperate but I am unable to be specific for legal reasons. Let us just say that my company and Walter Reed Medical Center share portions of the rights to the patents surrounding the prosthetics licensed to McBoyd." stated Tulley.

"Are you trying to say that this is some sort of national security issue or a legal non disclosure agreement. I assume it is not patient confidentiality... "

"I can say that It is one part national security and one part legal, but I will cooperate within the bounds that are allowed me." Tulley confirmed

"Understood. Are you familiar then with Mr McBoyd's , uh. level of internet fame?" asked Rubenz.

"No, I'm afraid I am not."

"Mr. McBoyd was apparently known as the King of the Whack Jobs. Can I assume that you know what a 'Whack Job' is? After all, we're talking about one of your um, inventions Colonel?"

"Yes, I am aware of the meaning of the slang term 'Whack Job'." Colonel Tulley stated with a glint in her eye that could easily be a smile of humor, or an inviting, faux tell conjured on demand to pull her feeble minded prey in for the kill. Rubenz had a feeling that she could have made a great actor a hundred years ago.

“Can you describe for me in layman's terms why prosthetic devices designed by the government trigger a super orgasm when they are cut off of a person? Is that really a necessary byproduct for a government developed prosthetic?" Rubenz asked.

"Of course, when we first designed the protocol for our prosthetic devices we focused on fingers, arms, feet and legs. The level of sophistication involved in managing these devices as if they were the real thing requires something akin to tactile sensory feedback. In a few of our early devices, we realized that if a device was 'injured' it triggered a sensory perception far stronger than a similar injury might cause.

“If we turned the intensity down during pain events, it turned the volume down across the board in the mind, so that a user could not feel pressure from a slight amount of heat, or the touch from the edge of a piece of paper.

“We couldn't find a way to modulate the extreme without impairing the ability of the device to appropriately sense base level activities. We couldn't subject our patients who had previously endured so much personal trauma already to a level of pain amplified falsely by our devices. So instead of modulating the pain down, we created an inverse of the event. Instead of pain, we opted for pleasure. It was an imperfect design. For prosthetics that did not involve sex organs, the pleasure was not sexual in nature. It was more akin to receiving a quick deep muscle massage.

“Later when we moved into sexual organ prosthetics, we, well we went too quickly. Our test subjects for the early devices seemed like representational examples, but as it turned out they were actually outliers. We were a few years into creating prosthetic P3nises before the situation came to our attention.

“We have not yet found a better alternative to the design dilemma but we are working on it very closely. In medical terms, we look at this as a side effect and not a life or system threatening problem at that.

“I can’t wait to hear the medical disclosure at the end of your future television commercials.” Rubens said dryly. “In fact, from my cursory review of Mr. McBoyd’s business, it would seem that this design issue is actually very good for business. I just visited a warehouse full of millions of P3nises.” Rubenz stated flatly.

“Oh, that was you.” Colonel Tulley said in a suddenly knowing way.

She seemed to blush a bit. Maybe that was the wrong description Rubenz thought. He had this growing feeling that he was misreading her body language, but couldn’t quite figure out why that was. Regardless, he didn’t respond, just let her pregnant-pause extend and grow a bit further, until she continued.

“I believe I saw you on the news a short time ago Detective. However, the volume was down and your face, was, it was slightly obscured.” Colonel Tulley seemed to be regaining her composure and that look of a predator was evident again.

Rubenz feigned slight embarrassment, cleared his throat and said, “Yes, I have also had opportunity to experience your handy work this evening. So tell me have the men of the world actually lost millions of penises. Are prosthetics that much in demand that millions of these items would need to fill a warehouse? I do not seem to recall any news stories to that effect lately?” Rubenz wanted to see how Colonel Tulley would do if she were playing defense. This was supposed to be a basic background discussion, but he sensed there was more to it.

“As the CEO of Haisham Inc and the leader of the project at Walter Reed Medical Center, I can confirm that those devices were not officially licensed. We have already submitted a patent and trademark dispute, and we are taking other steps as called for in our license to the late Mr. McBoyd’s company,” stated Tulley.

“Which company are you going to seek that claim against Colonel?” Rubenz asked again hoping to put her on the defensive. “And how long have you been familiar with More Cox 4 U?” he added as an afterthought.

“Excuse me Detective, we learned of More Cox 4 U Inc tonight from the news following the viral video report featuring yourself. We followed up by performing a due diligence search on the product ID’s on the packing material featured in the video, which led us to More Cox 4 U Inc and from there we traced the company to Mr. McBoyd.”

“Since you are filing licensing claims then, are you saying the P3nises distributed by Terrence McBoyd were black market items, and the man who was supposed to manage your worldwide prosthetic license was found in a warehouse, that we have confirmed he owned and managed directly, filled with blackmarket items?”

“That is our preliminary view,” stated Colonel Tulley.

“As a medical Doctor, Colonel, can I ask you a question about your prosthetics, specifically, what happens when a person wearing a prosthetic expires while the prosthetic is still connected?” asked Rubenz.

“Our trials and clinical testing did not include testing the devices through the process of the host’s expiration or death. However, as a doctor here at Walter Reed, I have seen far too many soldiers and veterans die, and a few of those included good people that were wearing one of our devices. The device requires a very small amount of energy from the person that wears it to maintain a connection. When a person dies, the processes of the body begin to fail. This includes the micro amounts of electricity that flow through the body. The prosthetic is designed to use more of its own power to maintain connection for a short amount of time. As the electricity inherent in a living person starts to fail, the energy level sometimes pulsates up and down. The swings down, trigger the device to work harder, and the end result is something similar to a repeated suction from the device. Once the prosthetic is removed after such a situation, it can sometimes leave traces of a suction mark on the body, similar to a subcutaneous hematoma caused when the lining of the blood vessels are slightly damaged and blood escapes into the skin. Most people refer to this as a hickey. I cannot say if this occurs with our prosthetics universally nor over what time interval as we usually remove the prosthetics of our patients after they decease and sometimes before if we are treating them here.

A warning light indicator flashed on Brad’s phone indicating that their allotted interview time was almost up.

“Thank you for your time Colonel. I may need to follow up with you as the case continues, although I will endeavor to minimize any distractions possible. I would ask, that if you are aware of any information, even casual considerations, that you feel might be pertinent to the demise of Mr. McBoyd, please feel free to contact me or send them through the formal post interview communications medium. Specifically, I would like to make a final request for a copy of the license agreement that Mr. McBoyd was responsible for prior to his death. I will need it for my investigation and I suspect IP Vice may need to review it as well.”

“Of course detective, I will provide you with any information or assistance that I can,” responded Colonel Tulley who had that predatory look in her eye again.

They signed off, and Rubenz sighed it was going to be a long night. He went to take a shower and think. The crime scene Bots had cleaned him up, but he still felt the need to shower. At the last minute, he detoured and decided to run on his virtual tread mill for a few miles. While he was running he started reviewing the available virtual crime scene, in a cursory inspection to regain a sense of the place and the ordering of the items in the crime scene.

After he determined that he had a good sense of things and he had run for about 50 minutes or about 11k, he then finally headed for the shower to clean up and decompress.

The time was a little after eleven PM. He would need some rest before tomorrow, but there was still some work to be done while the case was very fresh in his mind. He set his alarm for a 45 minute power nap and killed the lights in his bedroom.

Brad punched a button on his phone activating the official interview function. This would trigger a call to the interviewee with full legal disclosures and forms. Once accepted it would also document the interview completely. Furthermore, this would also be included in the live video feed.

"Yes, yes that must be the one." Rubenz stated not certain if it was 100% accurate himself, but knowing the phone search engine would have offered him other options if they existed within the search parameters.

"A request has been placed with Dr Tulley's calendar system. There is a time slot open for a 30 minute window at 9:45 PM, approximately 45 minutes from now. The next available window is 1 hour, tomorrow afternoon at 3:25 PM. Do you have a preference or would you like to place an investigation over ride if legally possible?" the voice asked.

"Let's go with 9:45 PM tonight." Brad replied. "Please make the connection at 9:45 for me and ring me when the Dr comes on the phone."

He had 45 minutes. He sent Jenny a quick text message. 'Can we talk?'

Her reply came back in seconds, 'Yes, I'm back in my townhouse.'

Brad thought of the townhouse she had inherited from her grandparents after they died. It was a nice place in the middle of the recently restored Buckhead area of Atlanta.

'I'll be there in 10 minutes.' Brad replied as he turned and walked back out the door.

The nice thing about Jenny's place in Buckhead was that it was easy to get there fast. She lived right off a main loop, near a recently demolished mall called Phipps. It was an antiquated old shopping mall, although no shopping of anything other than prostitutes and illicit drugs had been found in the broken down old structure in over forty years. Now that it had been leveled the neighborhoods around it actually felt safe, even though it was probably only a cosmetic safety.

He walked down the corner, hopped into a transport bubble and was on the primary corridor ninety seconds later. Five minutes after that he stepped out of the transport bubble and walked up the block towards Jenny's townhouse.

As he approached, he could see her sitting on the front steps outside, waiting for him. Jenny looked miserable and beautiful.

She stood up, wringing her hands, hesitating as if she wanted to hug him, scared as if touching him might trigger an electric shock to her system.

He thought to himself, that was exactly how he felt too, but wondered if her reasons were the same. It would be best to confront this straight on and get the worst, the new worst behind them.

He stepped up, paused and said, "Hello Jenny. May we step inside?"

She started to tremble and shake, "Oh god, its true. You never remember to say ‘may’ unless you need to say something serious."

He stepped closer reaching out to guide her elbow without touching it, more of a gesture. With the high level of static charge in the air it almost felt like a threat to even Brad, like ‘please let's go inside, don't make me touch you, I can't hug you . . . yet.’

What he really said was, "Please, we need to step inside."

Her misery temporarily turned to anger, "Of course. Job first. Shit you are as bad as Terry." She was muttering and probably trying to stoke the anger just a bit, an exaggeration to avoid the tears, but she did turn and led him up the steps.

They walked in through her door and instantly the static charge disappeared. He stepped to the right into the living room. Even without the charge, he felt awkward as his training kicked in. He realized that he was keeping eyes on her as she closed the door behind them and turned to follow him into the living room. She looked at him briefly, sighed and then sat down on a couch. It was new. He did not recognize it even though he had helped her pick out most of the furniture in the house.

"Jenny, Terrence McBoyd is deceased. I am not at liberty to say much more for reasons that are probably obvious. As the next . . . next of kin," Those words really stuck in his throat, "I must inform you and let you know that I am investigating the circumstances of his passing. Family services and grief counselors are available should you need them."

"So you are a homicide detective still,” she said emphasizing the word ‘are’. “That must mean someone thinks this was a homicide." Jenny said.

"All I can say is that yes, I am still a homicide detective." Brad replied. "How did you hear about Terry's death Jenny?"

"I heard it from his fucking wife. I mean, his ex-wife. I'm his wife now, or was his wife. Shit, shit shit!”

The anger and grief were bubbling again. "She called, she was accusing me, rubbing it in. she said, 'He's dead and it’s because of you and your sex-freak lifestyle." Jenny added. "Yes, we met having an office affair and all, but cheating doesn't equate to being a sex-freak."

“On the phone earlier you said something about a video message.” Rubens queried.

Jenny paused, “I must have imagined it, like déjà vu. I thought I had received a message. I could have sworn that I watched it, but it wasn’t on my phone. I started to check with the police station via the web, then I called you and you wouldn’t say. Then she called later via holovision.”

Brad didn’t follow up on that one, yet. He would double check phone records. Video messages didn’t just disappear; they were stored forever virtually, just accessible via a phone.

Jenny could be telling the truth, but that didn’t mean that someone with money, influence or both hadn’t done something to the video message records. Then, Brad couldn't help envisioning Terry boy with whacked off p3nises all around him, in a warehouse full of them, and in a warehouse that Terry owned.

"How did you meet Terry?" Brad asked.

"I took a job working for him, not directly that is. He ran a distribution business here in town. I took a position writing logistics algorithms. It was a small office. We all worked a lot of hours. He had also written logistics algorithms early in his own career and acted as a bit of a mentor to me for a while."

"When did you . . ." Brad trailed off, his own emotions suddenly getting in the way of the question.

Jenny picked up with a flash in her eye, "Start sleeping with him, dating him, or decide to marry him?"

She could probably see the retreat in his eyes, and said, "I'm sorry. It’s all so much. We just kind of lived and breathed work. We got close. It all kind of melted together. He was separated from his wife, living in a different house for several years. I was looking for someone.” The way she said ‘someone’ made Brad want to finish the sentence for her, ‘someone, not like you.’

"Eight months ago his divorce was finalized, and 2 months ago we were married." She finished.

"Why do you think is ex-wife was . . . " Brad started

"Such a bitch to me? She's probably not really. I think she never expected the divorce. She just thought Terry was a workaholic and would move back when things were practical. When he filed for divorce, I think she was shocked."

"I do not know the details of the divorce settlement, but I think she received a lot of money. Terry and I had pretty rigid prenuptial agreements. Terry's business was pretty large and extended, and I have my own inheritance. Neither of us married for the money, but with my family, siblings and a complex trust, and his family, ex-wife, a daughter and multiple business partners, it just seemed the easiest way. We were together as a couple, but financially we were completely separate."

"So now that he has passed, you retain nothing from Terry?" Rubenz asked.

"Nothing material. Nothing from the business that is. I believe I will receive some money from a small insurance policy, but that's more than likely for tying up loose ends. With my trust, there wasn't much that he could leave me that would make a material financial difference." She added. Jenny was about as rich as they come. She didn’t have to work, and especially didn’t have to work for someone else. She always had though. Jenny wanted the experience of working her way up the corporate ladder despite having a trust large enough to feed a small nation. But she came from tough stock. Her father and grandfather before her had each amassed amazingly large accumulations of wealth, making each of them one of the ten richest people in the world in their turn.

They both gave away 98% of their entire wealth to charity only leaving a small fraction of their wealth in a spend thrift trust to each of their children. Jenny was just starting out. She didn’t have the inventive genius of either her father nor her grandfather, but she did have an amazing drive and probably would eclipse them some day.

He recollected his thoughts catching the time on his phone, "I understand. I can't stay long, but couldn't delay the visit. I will do what I can." Brad said.

"That's true. God, this must be a homicide, which is hard for me to fathom at the moment, but I do know that if it is something atypical then you can definitely figure it out. Shit. shit. shit! It must be something extra gruesome or they would have just sent crime scene bots and some junior level investigator. This isn't normal is it?" Jenny asked.

"I can't say more, but you know what I do." Rubenz said, "I do need to ask you two remaining questions: When did Terry's ex-wife contact you and what type of products did Terry's business distribute?"

"She popped in via holovision and started ranting at me." Jenny said, "I wasn't here. Terry and I lived at his house. This is the first time I've been here since just after the wedding 2 months ago. She still had a holo key allowing her to appear at his house. I guess that was primarily for their daughter to call. I don't think I ever saw his ex call via holo before."

"It must have been around 7pm. I checked in through the police website and was routed to the officer in charge. When I saw the url address pop up, it had your badge id and that's when I realized the case was assigned to you, I just called you immediately and didn't finish filling out the form online." Jenny said

Rubenz thought of the crappy security loophole on the police website. That overly simple url had caused problems before, and it could have almost derailed this investigation. He clicked a button on his phone, which tagged this time in the interview as an item for internal process review. His superiors were always looking for situational examples, anecdotes that they could show to politicians to make improvements, budget justifications, and get things done in general.

Jenny hadn't stopped talking, "so he was primarily involved in medical prosthetics. We shipped prosthetics all around the world, not just for veterans."

"Just prosthetics?" Brad asked.

"Yes, well and a few accessories that shipped with them for maintenance or repairs."

"Was Terry involved in any other businesses? Any other product lines?" Brad asked.

"No, there were a number of shells and subsidiaries in different countries, but it was all the same primary business."

"Ok, Jenny, get some rest" Brad was going to table the hard questions until he had more background information.

Brad quickly resumed his review of the crime scene. He was always getting shit in the office for actually working the crime scene and not relying on the automated scene reconstructions that could be reviewed in his office or at home.

"Wastes valuable investigation time traveling to crime scenes." and "Reluctant to embrace technology to its full extant."

Those were common negative review bullets that he regularly had to defend on a quarterly basis with a discussion of his theory that working a crime scene in person gave him a greater insight, which contributed to his higher success rate. He not only closed more cases successfully, but he typically closed them 15% faster than his peers.

He'd probably get less shit, if his techniques worked for other investigators, but for reasons unknown to Brad, his peers were slower and less successful on average when they personally visited a crime scene. In fact, it was rather unusual for IP Vice to have shown up here at all. . .

What were they doing here?

Anyway, he had to regain his focus or his own speed might slow down and his next review might be less defensible.

He recalled noticing the base of the penes seemed to share the symmetrical looking pattern that formed the welts on the victim's body.

He suspected that some short circuit in the prosthetic had caused it to fail and fall off the victim once it had been severed or soon after maybe. There were no severed prosthetic members left attached to the body with the exception of 2 that were only partially severed. These were both located on the tops of his hands.

He queried for more information on the prosthetic technologies to confirm his hypothesis. He stated, "Prosthetic penis failure causes" and came up with a long list of items that seem to be mostly complaints about device failures, too hard, too soft, out of control rotation syndrome.

Jesus Christ this was a weird situation he thought to himself. He refined his search "prosthetic penis failure causes cutting".

This brought up a selection that seemed to be more on topic. The first item was a three dimensional web video tutorial "How to cut your dick off and love it!"

This was followed by a link from the manufacturer disclaiming any warranty on a penis that had been cut, severed, smashed, electrocuted, burned, melted, frozen or blown up with specially designed fireworks. Fuckin A, there were some sick people out there Brad thought as he opted for the video "How to cut your dick off and love it!"

He bookmarked the video, and then proceeded to fast forward to the actual section that displayed a penis getting cut off. A rather simple but attractive looking woman, someone that could be anyone's wife or girl friend, was teasing an average looking man, lightly rubbing his chest, then his belly, and then he reached down with lightning speed, grabbed his penis and with the other hand in a rapid slicing motion cut through the penis in one fell swoop.

A warning sign popped up on the video, 'WARNING! Rapid cutting is not advised especially for inexperienced whackers. You might miss and cut yourself or your partner somewhere that will bleed real blood. Cut an artery in your partner's leg and they could even die! For more information on accidental deaths and how to avoid them when whacking your partners penis off click here'

The video frame moved on to what seemed like a repeat of the last scene. The same woman was again lightly tracing her partner's chest and belly with a finger nail. She then reached for his penis, held it by the head of the penis with her hand leaving a few inches of the shaft of the penis exposed. She then turned the knife in her other hand in a way that the sharp point of the blade was pointed in the same direction as the knuckles of that hand, or the opposite direction that a blade would normally be pointed.

Then she hooked the sharp section underneath the arm holding the penis and lightly resting against the penis shaft itself, base of the knife blade an inch or so above the base of the penis. She then sliced pulling the knife hilt towards her abdomen and applying pressure with her cutting hand as if she were delivering a backhand blow while pulling the penis onto or towards the blade with her other hand.

The penis was cut cleanly through in one swipe and a new pop up message stated, "For maximum safety, always cut in a direction that is away from you, away from your partner's major arteries, face and hands."

The video refocused on the severed penis which spurted what looked like a lot of blood for a short few seconds and then stopped. The man who just had his penis 'whacked' looked like he was experiencing the best and longest orgasm possible. It took him a full two minutes to recover.

During that entire time the remaining base of the penis never fell off. Eventually, the man peeled the base off, tossed it in the trash, reached for another penis, connected it to his skin and then advanced on the woman who had a very happy look on her face.

Brad scrolled through some related video tutorials demonstrating other cutting techniques. They showed how a person could perform more exotic cuts, with different types of knifes from butter knives and steak knives to hunting knives and more. A few videos demonstrated devices that looked like a combination guillotine/vice that seemed to clamp down and flatten the penis for a minute or two, then release the pressure, which caused the penis to re-inflate and then a slice from the blade cut right through the formerly mutilated dick.

But in all of the cases, there was no welt left on the skin after wards.

Brad still thought there might be something to his hypothesis, but now realized he might have to check with the medical examiner to determine if it was a trait that only surfaced with a corpse that had lost his penis.

Tools I use

My day job involves blogging professionally and designing/building websites running on WordPress. I also train teach others how to do this around the country. See more at my company website Softduit Media

I don't write the actual chapters here in WordPress. Originally, I tried out NewNovelist and REALLY REALLY liked it. It helped me stay focused on covering what needed to be covered while methodically making progress towards a visible goal both in terms of tangible words and in plot and character development.

But it was very buggy when I tried it.

Then I switched to a combination of several different tools that included MindManager (I am also a MindManager trainer, but don't work as one any longer.) After I started writing more on my iPad I also used iThoughtsHD, a mind mapping tool, Dropbox for shuttling files between devices and audio files to Joe Klein doing the voice over production.

I later found Scrivener which is like NewNovelist but on some serious steroids. I write on a PC or on my iPad and Scrivener is really designed for Mac users and PC users as an after thought. So syncing files between my desktop and Scrivener is technically possible but not at all practical. So I'm doing a number of manual things to gather up the tidbits where ever I get them and arrange them in Scrivener.

Some of the audio work I do myself is done in Audacity, I have a Tapco 100 mixer, a Rode Procaster microphone with lots of accessories.